It never rains but it pours for poor old UKIP. Surely the thoroughly decent men and women who work tirelessly for their party deserve better leadership than this.

Tom Wise, UKIP MEP for the Eastern Region is under investigation for fraud after embezzling tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money by pretending to be someone else! Wise is alleged to have salted away £40,000 of public funds into his personal bank account.

EU rules state that MEPs can claim up to £125,000 a year for assistants’ wages but the money must be paid either directly to the employees or through a third-party “agent” to avoid fraud. However from November 2004 until October 2005 he
allegedly funneled £39,100 of taxpayers’ money into his own bank account from which he paid Lindsay Jenkins, his researcher just £13,555.

In another breach of the EU rules, some of the £13,555 paid to her was actually for work done on behalf of other party members, including the UKIP leader Nigel Farage who had agreed to fund the publication of a Eurosceptic book written by Jenkins.

Within months of his election success Wise was attempting to channel public funds into his own bank account. In October 2004 he applied to the EU payments office for Jenkins, a freelance researcher as well as a candidate at the time for selection to fight a parliamentary seat for the Conservatives, to be paid £36,000 a year.

UKIP Cover-up

Despite an internal UKIP inquiry into Wise’s behaviour, launched after the EU became aware of his scam, no action has been taken against him and the results of the investigation have been kept secret.

Last week the Electoral Commission said it was taking legal action to recover more than £360,000 in donations to UKIP, which allegedly breach rules governing party funding. The demand, which threatens to make the party bankrupt, comes after the commission is also looking at donations totalling £118,000 which were not put through any of UKIP’s main bank accounts.

UKIP systematically flouts the spirit of EU rules, which forbid party workers from being paid with taxpayers’ money. The party has been paying its regional organisers by designating them “advisers” and “assistants” to its 10 MEPs, thereby allowing them to draw salaries of up to £40,000 a year from the EU, while they do their actual jobs “in their spare time”.

Learning From History

UKIP have shown that they are not fit for purpose, they have let down the hundreds of thousands of voters who elected them. Those wishing to register an anti EU vote in the 2009 EU elections have only one real choice and that is to vote BNP.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news_detail.php?newsId=1373